This invention concerns methods and apparatus for loading pipette tips in the arrays of apertures provided by tip holders.
Disposable, plastic pipette tips are common commodities used by clinical and biomedical research laboratories worldwide in quantities reaching into the billions annually. They usually are supplied in one of three ways, namely, loaded in the array of apertures of a so called box, which serves the user as a rack or holder, or loaded into an array of apertures in a plate which is mated with a holder possessed by the user, or loose in a plastic bag from which they are transferred one-by-one to the apertures of a rack or holder. Loosely packaged tips are the least expensive, so this is the source favored by laboratories. However, the downside of this choice is that loading of the user's holders must be done by hand, which is a labor intensive and time-consuming operation, and one which can result in contamination of the tips even when the technician follows the standard practice of wearing protective gloves.
I am aware that some have suggested automating the tip-loading process at the suppliers' facilities, as evidenced by U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,481, issued Aug. 9, 1994. That proposal, however, involves complex, expensive machinery, so it clearly does not satisfy the needs of the laboratories of individual investigators; these have neither the space nor the funds required to utilize such machinery.